SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI AND SURROUNDINGS  1889

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(previous page) the chief ministries to their health, comfort and permanent prosperity.
The official roster of the company embraces P. B. Perkins, President;
John Francis, Vice President, and W. C. Hornbeak, Secretary, Treasurer
and General Manager. The management of this system is alike complimentary
to the company and the city and reflects high credit upon Mr. Hornbeak
and his official associates, who are among the most progressive, public
spirited and thoroughly executive men of the city. Springfield is pre-eminently
THE CITY OF SCHOOLS. From early to late, its cultivated and progressive
people, have been earnest and successful workers for free popular education.
A strong enlightened and growing school sentiment pervades all classes
and the result is seen in nine handsome and commodious public school buildings,
an admirable school system, a model high school, an enrollment of 4,200
pupils, a high order of discipline, and a reputation for scholarship second
to no public schools in the West. DRURY COLLEGE affords facilities for
higher academic culture to be found nowhere else in Southwest Missouri.
It has a group of fine massive college buildings, located in a beautiful
campus of nearly forty acres in the heart of the city, and, environed
with charming groves, ample deeply shaded lawns, spacious parade grounds,
delightful walks and drives, and all the accompaniments of a magnificent
park, is the embodiment of a model college home, and by far the most attractive
feature of the city. Drury College is not a mere boys and girls school
of local and provincial cast, but an institution of high grade for ladies
and gentlemen, whose elegant buildings and grounds, generous endowment,
large and cultivated faculty, liberal and comprehensive curriculum, fine
library and scientific collections, and able and progressive management,
give it rank with the foremost institutions of the country. It is founded
on the broad and rational plan of co-education of the sexes, and carries
upon its rolls a splendid company of young ladies and gentlemen, representing
a dozen states and territories, whose rank, standing and opportunity are
measured by conduct and scholarship rather than by sex. Preparatory and
Biblical departments, full classical and scientific courses, a department
of art, conservatory of music, gymnasium, literary societies, and a school
for military training, the latter managed by a company of cadets, and
the charming social order at Fairbanks Hall, the young ladies’ home, give
the Drury College student advantages for social, moral, intellectual and
physical training unsurpassed by even the great State universities. The
school fairly represents the advanced educational sentiment and culture
of the Southwest, and has a future of usefulness and honor co-extensive
with this great region. The cost of an education here is very cheap, by
comparison with other leading colleges, $150 being quite suflicient for
the expenses of the college year to young men, and from $190 to $210 per
year for young ladies who avail themselves of the pleasures and comforts
of Fairbanks Hall. The citizens of Springfield, many of whom have been
educated at Drury, are proud of this noble institution, which, from the
date of its founding in 1878, has done more for the social and intellectual
advancement of the community and the attraction of refined and intelligent
people to the city, than all other agencies combined.

A young ladies seminary of high repute, a Catholic academy under the
supervision of the Sisters of Loretto, a well-known commercial college
and the Missouri Academy of Music, with several parochial, mission and
private schools, are each and all educational agencies worthy of this
beautiful and growing metropolis. The city has THIRTY-SIX CHURCHES and
a dozen missions and chapels, representing nearly every phase of religious
thought and life, and there is hardly a secret order, union or fraternity,
not fully represented by the fifty-seven societies now organized within
its limits. There are several social and literary clubs, representing
the more independent, ambitious and intelligent elements of the city.
THE PERKINS GRAND OPERA HOUSE, a theatre, two music halls, and half a
dozen private halls and pleasure resorts, afford the amplest opportunity
for social, intellectual, musical and dramatic entertainment. The Perkins
Grand Opera House, completed and furnished in the spring of 1888, by P.
B. Perkins, at a cost of $75,000, has a seating capacity of 1400, and
for the completeness, elegance and perfection of its finish and appointments,
ranks with the finest opera houses in the West. It is modern in every
detail, and a compliment to its public spirited builder and the city.
Prominent among the agencies for the advancement of the city, are the
BOARD OF TRADE and Merchants’ Exchange, both recruited from the ranks
of the influential business men of the (next
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